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Inside Uber’s $100,000 fee to a hacker, and the fallout

“Hiya Joe,” learn the November 2016 electronic mail from somebody figuring out himself as “John Doughs.” “I’ve discovered a serious vulnerability in Uber.”

The e-mail gave the impression to be no totally different from different messages that Joe Sullivan, Uber’s chief safety officer, and his staff routinely obtained by the corporate’s “bug bounty” program, which pays hackers for reporting holes within the San Francisco ride-hailing service’s methods, in keeping with present and former Uber safety staff.

But the observe and Uber’s eventual $100,000 fee to the hacker, which was initially celebrated internally as a uncommon win in company safety, have since became a severe black eye for the corporate.